Why should we investigate secondary school teacher beliefs and teacher perceptions of English language teaching?

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124

Why should we investigate secondary school teacher beliefs

and teacher perceptions of English language teaching?

Nguyen Viet Hung*

Faculty of Foreign Languages, Taybac University, Sonla,Vietnam

Received 10 May 2011

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to make an argumentation on why researchers should start from 
seeking teacher beliefs and teacher perceptions related to the teaching career. It is organized
around three main points: (1) the re-examination of terms related to all perspectives of beliefs and
perceptions of teachers in general and teachers of English in particular; (2) the current state of
English language teaching in Vietnamese secondary schools; and (3) the importance of studying
teacher belief and teacher perceptions of teachers of English about curriculum, textbooks and
teaching methodology.

Keywords: Teacher beliefs, teacher perceptions, ELT, TBLT.

1. Introduction*

The series of the new English textbooks for
Vietnamese upper secondary schools, which
has officially been put into use since 2006, is
the result of the innovation by the Ministry of
Education and Training (MOET). However,
since that time, few researches have been

conducted, particularly those that are

concerned with teachers’ beliefs and teachers’
perceptions of the textbooks and the teaching
quality. Therefore, in this paper, an attempt is
made to examine this issue.

Over the past two decades, teacher belief
and teacher perception have attracted much
attention from researchers; the mark for this
new trend can be seen in the studies by such
scholars as M. A., J. L. Shrum, J. R. Harding
& A. M. Cuthbert [1], Kagan [2] and Pajares

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* Tel: 84-972.862.865

E-mail:

[3], Borg ([4], [5]), Verloop, N., J. Van Driel
& P. C. Meijer [6], etc. The importance of
studying teacher belief and teacher perception
is confirmed in studies by Cuban [ 7 ] ,
Allwright [8], and Canh [9]. It is, however, not
easy to provide an overview of the literature in
this field as different researchers tend to
conceptualize the notions of teacher belief and
teacher perception in a different way. This
explains why the section that follows will
attempt to look at how these terms have been
defined.

2. Definition of terminology

The notions of teacher belief and teacher
perception can be traced back to Pajares [3].
In a paper entitled Teachers’ beliefs and

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values, judgments, axioms, opinions, ideology,
perceptions, conceptions, conceptual systems,
preconceptions, dispositions, implicit theories,
explicit theories, personal theories, internal
mental processes, action strategies, rules of
practice, practical principles, perspectives,
repertories of understanding, and social
strategy, to name but a few that can be found
in the literature. Pajares goes further,
suggesting that beliefs are the best indicators
of the decisions individuals make throughout
their lives.

Some other researchers manage to clarify
the concept belief by making a distinction 
between beliefs and knowledge [1], [2], [6]. In
those argumentations, beliefs are often

described interchangeably as attitudes,

judgments, values, opinions, perceptions,
ideology, and internal mental processes as in
[1], [3]. Beliefs are relatively static whereas

knowledge changes as more and different
knowledge is acquired (Nespor [10]). However,
there exist opposite notions of belief and
knowledge. Grossman, P. M., S. M. Wilson &
L. S. Shulman [11], for example, first
attempted to distinguish the two notions but
then came to a contrary and surprising
conclusion: “while we are trying to separate
teachers’ knowledge and belief about subject
matter for the purposes of clarity, we recognize
that the distinction is blurry at best” (p.31). In
later work of Woods [12], a similar conclusion
was made. This is because, as Verloop et al. [6] 
explain, “in the mind of the teacher,

components of knowledge, beliefs,

conceptions, and intuitions are inextricably
intertwined” (p. 446).

It is known that teachers rarely alter their
knowledge of language teaching based upon
teaching methods or research studies they have
read and are more likely to do so as a result of
personal experiences or advice from colleagues
[2]. Knowledge of teaching methodology has
been referred to as propositional knowledge,
while knowledge from personal experiences

has been labeled practical knowledge:

“Practical knowledge is bounded by time,
place, or situation. To claim to know
something practically is to claim to know
something about an action, event, or situation
in a particular instance" (p. 28). This

delineation is supported further by

Calderhead's efforts to differentiate among
different sorts of teacher knowledge [13]. It
may be that straightforward questions about
research results require teachers' theoretical
knowledge, while situational questions activate
their personal practice or case knowledge.

Another distinction that was made by
researchers when dealing with factors that
affect language learning and teaching is

between the constructs “belief” and

“perception”. Perception is generally

characterised by a multiplicity of labels which
have been posited to describe, wholly or in part,
the psychological context of teaching (for
discussions of these see, for example, Pajares
[3], Verloop et al. [6]). While perhaps 
terminological innovation is a necessary

process in the conceptualisation of an
emerging domain of educational inquiry, this
proliferation of terms has led to a ‘definitional
confusion’ [7]. This conceptual ambiguity has
been further complicated by the fact that, as
Clandinin & Connelly point out, identical
terms have been defined in different ways and
different terms have been used to describe
similar concepts. Language teacher cognition
research has inevitably been influenced by

concepts established in mainstream

educational literature, and consequently a
range of different labels appear in the studies.

For the purpose of this study, it can be
assumed that “beliefs” and “perceptions” and
other terms such as “attitude”, “conception”
and “cognition” are better to be synonymous.
If, for example, a teacher “believes” that the
teaching technique is ineffective, he or she
“perceives” that the technique to be ineffective.

Indeed, these constructs seem to be

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Mori, Y., Sato, K., & Shimizu, H. [14] refer to
the many studies that have focused on learner
strategies and their correlations with learner
beliefs as “belief studies” that “have

contributed to our better understanding of
learner perceptions…” (p. 58). They also speak
of the “specificity of learner perceptions”
which they define by way of giving an
example: “task-specific beliefs” (p. 58).

3. English teaching in Vietnamese upper 
secondary schools

As far as the teaching of English is
concerned, methodological renovation is one
of the primary focuses of MOET in an attempt
to enhance the quality of English language
teaching. The implementation of the new series
of textbooks since 2006 has placed all
Vietnamese teachers of English in the rush of
teaching method renovation. The major
orientation for renovation is the advocacy of
task-based language teaching (TBLT).

As mentioned, the teaching method used in
the new series of textbooks selected for
English teaching in Vietnam is obviously
TBLT which is based largely on the
framework of Willis [15] which was then
strongly supported by Skehan (1998; 2003)(1),
Ellis (2003)(2) and Willis [16]. This series of

textbooks was carefully designed and

developed by a group of ELT specialists
headed by Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Van, and this
was a big effort to change the teachers’ attitude,
teachers’ awareness of English teaching in
Vietnam from teacher-centered to
learner-centered orientation. According to Prof. Dr.
Hoang Van Van (personal communication,

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(1)

See more in the work of Skehan, P.1998, Task-based
instruction, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 18, pp.
2 68-286; and Skehan, P. (2003), Task-Based Instruction,
United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

(2)

See more in the work of Ellis, R. 2003b, Task-based
language learning and teaching, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

November 15, 2008), the new series of
textbooks of English f or Vietnamese upper
secondary schools employs the
learner-centered approach and is implemented by most
modern teaching methods, i.e. CLT with its
evolutionary version known as TBLT. It is a
fact that in the textbooks from grade 10th to

grade 12th, the framework of each unit consists

of five parts (reading, speaking, listening,
writing, language focus), and in each
skill-taught part the teaching consists of three
phases (pre-task, while-task and post-task),
each of which has smaller tasks or subtasks
[17], [18], [19]. To compare this framework
with ancestors, it fits well with the one
proposed by Willis ([15], [16]), Skehan (1998;
2003) and Ellis (2003). A minor difference
between them is that the duration for a task
accomplishment in the new series of textbooks
is bigger and more ranging to be afforded than
the TBLT framework stated in the theory; a
task is not accomplished in a class teaching
period but in 10 periods (2 periods for each
part: reading, speaking, listening, writing,

language focus). With those facts, the

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attitudes of the new series of textbooks; a lot of
teachers suppose that it is impossible to use the
communicative approach or TBLT as required
in the new textbooks because their students are

mainly ethnic people who have low

proficiency and few facilities for study which
result in their demotivation of learning.

This fact should really attract a number of
researches in teacher belief and teacher
perception of the new series of English
textbooks for Vietnamese upper secondary
schools and the teaching method (TBLT)
implied in this series of textbooks in
forthcoming time, and the work of the writer
would be one in those. This research decision
of the writer appears to be correct due to the

supporting information from previous

researches of methodologists about the
importance of teacher belief and teacher
perception and its effects on teaching practice
in this field that is about to discuss at the next
section.

4. Why Should We Start from Teacher Beliefs? 
4.1. The Importance of Studying Teacher 
Beliefs and Teacher Perceptions

It is obvious that capitalizing on the
nature of human beings and their prior
cognition receives the focal emphasis from
educators and researchers those who intend to
investigate the current situation of their
teaching in order to propose changes to the
matter. The result of teaching certainly

depends on many factors, and the teachers
themselves with their own perceptions of
teaching methods cannot be ignored. Canh [9]
argues that to understand teaching, we need to
go beyond the classroom to seek answers to
the question "Why the interaction between
teacher and class happens that way?" (p.109).
In other word, the teaching of English can be
empowered very much by understanding
teachers’ cognitive process of teaching and

ELT methodology and if then pedagogical
considerations are taken into account.

Borg [5], on the other hand, states that
educational researches in over the last 20 years
have recognized the impact of teacher
cognition on teachers’ professional lives, and
this has generated a substantial body of
research. Having examined several reviews of
these researches, such as from [2], [3], [11],
[13], he concludes that teachers are active,

thinking decision-makers who make

instructional choices by drawing on complex,
practically-oriented, personalised, and
context-sensitive networks of knowledge, thoughts,
and beliefs. Borg [5, p.86] also states, “Beliefs
established early on in life are resistant to

change even in the face of contradictory
evidence (adopted from Nisbett & Ross(3))”.
Such beliefs take the form of episodically
stored material emerged from critical incidents
in individuals’ personal experience of learning
as teacher learner and the teaching as a teacher
[10], and thus teachers learn a lot about
teaching through their vast experience as
learners, what Lortie (1975)(4) called their
‘apprenticeship of observation’. Mainstream
studies illustrate the influence on teachers’
cognitions of their experience as learners;
similar findings emerge from research with
language teachers.

As can be seen from confirmations above,
the importance of teacher cognition is clear, so
the highlight and encouragement of researches
in this field should be made. Canh [9] devotes
much of his studies to such issues as teaching
reality, teacher cognition and teaching context.
He goes further stating that: “....language
learning, and therefore language teaching, does
not occur in a vacuum, but in larger context;
the teacher perception of the context within

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(3)

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which the language or languages are to be

learned and used is very crucial” (p. 108).
Therefore, the issue is not which method is
the best or whether or not a new method is
superior to its predecessor; the issue is how
teachers learn to vary their method and
approach, and how they rationalize the method
or approach they use. In other words, teachers
should be encouraged to move "from ideology
to inquiry" (p.116).

Accordingly, in order to have full
understandings of teachers’ beliefs and
perceptions of their teaching, researches in this
field is indispensable; we cannot apply
measures to improve teaching quality when we
do not have enough understanding of its reality.
For example, when we do not have
investigations in the teaching reality of a
province, we invest more facilities such as
computers, cassette players, etc., while

teachers in this provinces lack of

understandings of the teaching method applied
for implementing the new textbooks; that
investment is naïve, redundant and ineffective.
Through firsthand information, our impression
is that secondary school teachers of English in
NWA cannot be confirmed as full and correct
understanders of teaching methods in their use

because most of them declared that they made
their teaching plans by copying what had been
designed in lesson designing books. That
action even makes them not aware of what
method they are using, what characteristics the

method persists, what advantages and

disadvantages the method has, what context
the method should be applied, etc. It is
dangerous as it is known that textbooks and
even lesson designing books are the same in
the whole country; whereas, the teaching
context, culture and other teaching variables
are unidentical between different regions. To
understand more about English teachers’
cognition in our country, it is appeasable to
welcome researches, both regional and overall
ones. Expectantly, ELT in Vietnam can be
fostered very much when we understand the

role of teachers’ cognitions of ELT methods.

4.2. The effects of teacher beliefs and teacher 
perceptions of ELT methodology on teaching 
practice

The discussion of this point is started with
the statement by Bransford, Brown and
Cockling [20] that “humans are viewed as goal

directed agents who actively seek information.
They come to formal education and training
with a range of prior knowledge, skills, beliefs
and concepts that significantly influence what
they notice about the environment and how
they organize and interpret it. This, in turn,
affects their abilities to remember, reason,
solve problems and acquire new knowledge”
[p.l0]. That viewpoint matches well with what
Cuban [ 7 ] mentioned in case human agents
are teachers. He argues that "The knowledge,
beliefs, and attitudes that teachers have shaped
what they choose to do in their classrooms and
explain the core of instructional practices that
have endured over time" [p. 256]. In other
words, teacher belief and teacher perception
have gigantic effects on the teaching quality.

These days, with the ELT methodology
development, language is generally no longer
regarded as a set of grammatical rules, with
sets of vocabulary, to be memorized.
Accordingly, learning can hardly be seen
simply as a process of habit formation, but a
dynamic resource for creating meaning.
Teachers and learners with the cognitive
processes and social processes they engage in
as they learn are seen as fundamentally
important to the learning and teaching process.
Therefore, sociocultural and psychological

theories are beginning to be drawn on in
addition to (or even in preference to) cognitive
theories. Everybody knows that the main aim
of foreign language teaching is to enable
learners to communicate in the target language.
Therefore, “to be an effective foreign language
teacher requires a range of skills and

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teachers’ perception of teaching methodology
would very much affect their classroom
teaching, or in other words, these two factors
correlate well with each other. Allwright [8]
made the point that: “... We need studies of

what actually happens, not of what

recognizable teaching methods, strategies or
techniques are employed by the teacher, but
of what really happens between teacher and
class” (p. 51).

To this point, the majority of class
teaching can be interpreted and the reality is
easily made out if the researcher can
understand teachers’ interpretation of teaching
methodology, so what applications related to
the teaching can originate from the method the
teacher chose and how he or she was aware of
it. Stern [21, p. 27] has asserted, "No language
teacher - however strenuously he may deny his

interest in theory - can teach a language
without a theory of language teaching". It is an
immediately apparent fact that everything
teachers do in the classroom is underpinned by
beliefs and understandings about the nature
of language, the nature of the learning process
and the nature of the teaching act (i.e.
methodology).

In addition, teachers' beliefs and

perceptions appear to possibly underlie their
judgments about textbooks and teaching
context [3], [6], [22], although many times
these beliefs are interwoven with knowledge,
making it difficult to separate the two. Many
researchers (e.g. Stipek & Byler [23], Wood
[12]) have identified teachers' beliefs about
textbooks and the language teaching method as
a way to explain their practice of teaching.
Researches on teachers’ beliefs have boomed
violently all over the world in recent years;
however, few studies have documented how
teachers use their own belief systems to their
teaching careers in Vietnam.

An example of teacher belief in ELT is
through casual talks that the researcher has in
turn done to 50 secondary teachers in the

northwest area of Vietnam (NWA) in
December, 2010, most of them thought that
the teaching methodology is extremely vital
to their teaching. They assert to prefer CLT
and TBLT as the most used and favourable
teaching approaches whose activities are both
motivating and interesting, and that they
generally promote meaningful exchanges and
genuine communication in realistic contexts.
The teachers, in addition, believed that
implementing CLT and other modern teaching
methods such as TBLT is troublesome not
only in NWA but also in Vietnam because of
the large classes and of lacking authenticity.
Besides, they also thought that any deficits in
activities and tasks can be overcome through
adaptation or supplementation. Also, lots of
information from graduation research papers of
students of Tay Bac University revealed that
teachers in NWA usually had to adapt, change,
simplify or remove learning tasks designed in
textbooks, and they could not keep up with
learner-centeredness approach as required by
MOET. They admitted that they had to deal
with tasks on their own because they believed
that their students were inactive and the
language proficiency was insufficient. Those
facts may result form the cognitions and
beliefs mentioned above. However, this is
only information at first hand; the image of

teachers’ teaching practice reality imbedded
into by their beliefs and perceptions in NWA
and in Vietnam will be depicted after our big
project has been completed in forthcoming
months; and its data will be presented and
discussed in later papers.

5. Conclusion

This paper has been concerned with the

question, “Why should we investigate

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situation of teaching and learning English in
Vietnamese secondary schools. Having asked
the question “Why should we start from
teacher beliefs?”, I discussed the importance of

studying teacher beliefs and teacher

perceptions and the effects of teachers’ beliefs
and teachers’ perceptions of ELT methodology
on teaching practice. It is obvious that for the
teachers to improve the quality of their
teaching, the first things we should do is to
look at their beliefs and their perceptions of the
textbooks and the teaching methodology lying
behind them. However, the problem seems to
be more complex than it was thought.
Hopefully, this paper helps clarify some of the

issues concerning the area of teacher belief and
teacher perception, an initial step for further
study in the area.

References

[1] Eisenhart, M. A., J. L. Shrum, J. R. Harding & A. M.
Cuthbert, Teacher beliefs: definitions, findings and
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[2] Kagan, D., Ways of evaluating teacher cognition:
inferences concerning the Goldilocks principle, Review 
of Educational Research, 60 (1990) 419.

[3] Pajares, M. F., Teachers’ beliefs and educational
research: cleaning up a messy construct, Review of 
Educational Research, 62 (1992) 307.

[4] Borg, S., Studying teacher cognition in second language
grammar teaching, System, 27 (1999a) 19.

[5] Borg, S., Teacher cognition in language teaching: a
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81.

[6] Verloop, N., J. Van Driel & P. C. Meijer, Teacher
knowledge and the knowledge base of teaching,
International Journal of Educational Research, 35 
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[7] Cuban, L., How teachers taught: Constancy and change 
in American classrooms: 1890-1990 (2nd ed.), Teachers 
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[8] Allwright, R. L., Observation in the Language 
Classroom, London: Longman, 1988.

[9] L.V.Canh, Understanding Foreign Language Teaching 
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Hanoi, 2004.

[10] Nespor, J., The role of beliefs in the practice of teaching,
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[11] Grossman, P. M., S. M. Wilson & L. S. Shulman,
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[12] Woods, D., Teacher Cognition in Language Teaching, 
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[15] Willis, J., A Framework for Task-Based Learning, 
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[16] Willis, J., Task-based learning? What kind of adventure? 
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[17] Bo Giao duc va Dao tao, Tieng Anh 10, Nxb Giao duc, 
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[18] Bo Giao duc va Dao tao, Tieng Anh 11, Nxb Giao duc, 
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[19] Bo Giao duc va Dao tao, Tieng Anh 12, Nxb Giao duc, 
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[20] Bransfort, J.D., Brown, A.L., Cockling, R.R., How 
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[21] Stern, H. H., Fundamental Concepts of Language 
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Tại sao nên nghiên cứu niềm tin và nhận thức của giáo viên

trung học phổ thông về việc dạy tiếng Anh?

Nguyễn Việt Hùng

Khoa Ngoại ngữ, Trường Đại học Tây Bắc, Sơn La, Việt Nam

Mục đích của bài viết này là biện luận về việc tại sao các nhà nghiên cứu lại ln chú trọng đến
việc tìm hiểu niềm tin và nhận thức của giáo viên đối với nghề nghiệp của họ. Bài viết được tổ chức
thành ba nội dung chính: (1) xem xét lại các khái niệm liên quan đến tất cả các khía cạnh của niềm tin
và nhận thức của giáo viên nói chung và giáo viên tiếng Anh nói riêng; (2) hiện trạng về dạy và học
tiếng Anh ở các trường phổ thông Việt Nam; và (3) tầm quan trọng của việc nghiên cứu niềm tin và
nhận thức của giáo viên tiếng Anh về chương trình sách giáo khoa và phương pháp giảng dạy.

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